From 2 March, Tesco will no longer wrap its own brand and branded multipack canned items in plastic, eliminating 67 million pieces of plastic.

The items will be sold individually but customers will still be able to benefit from multibuy offers.

Tesco said 183,000 tinned multipacks are bought every day from the store, with more than 40% of customers including them in their shopping baskets. The most popular are baked beans, tuna, tinned tomotoes and soup.

The move will help more than eight million households in the UK reduce the amount of plastic they use and forms part of Tesco’s commitment to remove one billion pieces of plastic from its own brand products by the end of 2020.

It comes after a successful trial in the Tesco Bar Hill Extra store which will be rolled out nationwide in March, though remaining stock will be allowed to sell-through.

Tesco CEO, Dave Lewis, said: “We are removing all unnecessary and non-recyclable plastic from Tesco. As part of this work, removing plastic wrapped multipacks from every Tesco store in the UK will cut 350 tonnes of plastic from the environment every year and customers will still benefit from the same great value ‘multipack’ price. This is part of our plan to remove one billion pieces of plastic in 2020.”

Rob Morgan, investment analyst at Charles Stanley Direct, said: “Removing unnecessary single-use plastic from packaging is a good step towards helping cut waste. Realistically, it is not possible to eliminate the use of plastic, though, so the development of a ‘circular economy’ that recycles or repurposes more material is necessary. Investors can help by challenging packaging and consumer companies on this issue.”